AP® United States Government and Politics review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/gov/units/1/1-4)
Unit 1 · Topic 1.4
1.4 Challenges of the Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, created a weak national government on purpose: after fighting a king, Americans didn't want a strong central power. Congress couldn't tax, regulate trade or enforce its laws, and Shays' Rebellion showed how helpless it was. Those failures led directly to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Key terms
- Articles of Confederation
- Shays' Rebellion
- interstate commerce
- confederation
- Constitutional Convention
What the Articles set up
The Second Continental Congress drafted the Articles in 1777, and they took effect in 1781 when the last state, Maryland, ratified them. They created a confederation, a loose alliance of sovereign states in which the states hold most of the power and the central government depends on them.
The national government was a single-house Congress. Each state had one vote no matter its population. Important laws needed the votes of 9 of the 13 states, and changing the Articles required all 13. There was no president to enforce laws and no national court system to settle disputes.
Key weaknesses and how the Constitution fixed them
| Weakness under the Articles | Result | Fix in the Constitution |
|---|---|---|
| Congress could not tax; it could only ask states for money | States often paid little, so Congress couldn't pay war debts or soldiers | Congress can lay and collect taxes (Article I, Section 8) |
| Congress could not regulate interstate commerce | States taxed each other's goods and fought trade wars | Commerce Clause gives Congress power over trade among the states |
| Congress had no exclusive power to coin money; states issued their own currency | A confusing mix of money that often lost value | Only Congress may coin money, and states are barred from it (Article I, Sections 8 and 10) |
| No executive branch | No one to enforce national laws | Article II creates a president |
| No national courts | No way to settle disputes between states | Article III creates the Supreme Court and lets Congress add lower courts |
| Amendments required all 13 states | One state could block any reform | Article V needs three-fourths of states to ratify |
| Each state got one vote; 9 of 13 needed for major laws | Hard to pass anything | Bicameral Congress with simple majorities for most laws |
Shays' Rebellion (1786–1787)
In western Massachusetts, many farmers, including Revolutionary War veterans, were deep in debt. The state demanded taxes in hard money, and courts were seizing farms. Led partly by veteran Daniel Shays, armed farmers shut down courts to stop foreclosures, and in January 1787 they tried to seize the federal arsenal at Springfield.
The national government had no army and no money to raise one. Massachusetts put down the rebellion with a militia paid for largely by private merchants. The lesson many leaders drew was that a government too weak to keep order couldn't protect property or liberty. That fear gave momentum to the call for a convention.
What the Articles did get right
Don't conclude the Articles were useless. Under them, the country finished the Revolutionary War, signed the Treaty of Paris (1783) and passed the Northwest Ordinance (1787), which set up a plan for organizing western territories into new states and banned slavery in the Northwest Territory.
The road to Philadelphia
In 1786, delegates from five states met at the Annapolis Convention to discuss trade problems. Too few states came to act, so they called for a broader meeting. The Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia in May 1787, officially to revise the Articles. Instead, the delegates wrote an entirely new constitution.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Building a causation chain
Explain how a weakness of the Articles of Confederation led to the Constitutional Convention.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Name a specific weakness: Congress couldn't tax and had no power to raise an army on its own.
- Step 2: Link it to an event: when Shays' Rebellion broke out in 1786, the national government couldn't respond, and Massachusetts relied on a privately funded militia.
- Step 3: Link the event to the outcome: leaders feared more uprisings and concluded the national government needed real power, so support grew for the 1787 Convention.
- Step 4: Each link should say how one thing caused the next, using words like “because” and “so.”
Answer: Because Congress couldn't tax or raise an army, it was powerless during Shays' Rebellion, which convinced many leaders that a stronger national government was needed and built support for the Constitutional Convention.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Articles had a weak president. There was no executive at all.
- Saying Congress had no powers. It could declare war, make treaties, borrow and coin money (though states could issue money too); it couldn't tax, regulate interstate trade or enforce laws.
- Dating Shays' Rebellion after the Convention. It happened in 1786–1787, before the Convention met in May 1787, and helped cause it.
On the exam
- Questions often ask why the Articles failed or how a constitutional feature fixed a specific weakness. Pair each weakness with its fix.
- The Articles are a required document, so a passage from them may appear in multiple choice. Look for “league of friendship” or each state keeping its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence.”
Connected topics
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Check yourself
4 questions on 1.4 Challenges of the Articles of Confederation. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Article V. … In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote.
Article XIII. … nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
Articles of Confederation, ratified 1781
Article XIII made it hard to fix the weaknesses of the Articles mainly because
Which of the following provides the best evidence for the claim that the Articles of Confederation created a weak national government?
Shays' Rebellion (1786–1787) increased support for replacing the Articles of Confederation chiefly because it showed that
In the 1780s, some states taxed goods brought in from neighboring states, and the neighbors struck back with taxes of their own. Congress under the Articles of Confederation couldn't stop these trade fights mainly because it
0 of 4 answered